A Review of Sewing–Part 3

In the box sent to me was a fuchsia saree and a pant suit. The saree was to be used in a dress and the pant suit was to have embroidery on it. There was a compromise on the suit but that will come later.

Daughter and I had spent most of a day figuring out dress designs for several clients that would be wearing dresses at this  year’s Miss Rodeo Canada event. No two dresses could be the same as the other. As this girl is one of two competing, her two dresses (and one other) got the best of designs.

Once the design was chosen, the fabric purchased, and patterns traced, the saree would not talk to me. I really struggled getting this dress done. I started on the sleeves as they spoke first. The appliques are the same and placement is

One up

 

 

And one down

 

I sewed the dress to hemming it before the neckline applique spoke and I finished it.

To add to the dramatic effect of this dress, an overskirt was decided upon. I got it cut out and the biggest applique laid on to it. It wasn’t talking to me. It was actually ignoring me. And it ignored Daughter too.

This is one of many layout designs we tried.

 

 

This looks like it has wings on each side so the overskirt can open up and fly away.

 

As you can see, the dress does not have an applique on it other than the sleeves and neckline. That started after we got to this stage and Daughter and I talked. That talk led me to cutting the flower out of the large spray I had laid out on the back of the skirt. That was 24 hours after the last design layout.

Once that was done, the outfit fell together. The large spray was discarded from the picture and once that was done we boogied. It wasn’t only speaking to us, it was yelling at us to get busy.



And we were thrilled to be creating. In the process of it speaking, we found crystals that were for an other project that died in the water. So we used them. Volcano stones but these are pinker than the ones used on the velvet jacket.

We decided that the overskirt would be quite plain. All the appliques got hidden in the gathers. Only the edging was used and hand sewn on. It’s simplicity is perfect.

It was done with about 40 hours of hand sewing.

As there was enough of the fuchsia fabric left over, I made a short jacket. It did not work with the dress – curves and straight lines were clashing. In fact is was reminding me of something from you know where.

No matter what we did, it wouldn’t work for us. So we used another idea so it be worn with a lace top and black jeans. It is cute.

 

The compromise. The black pantsuit was suppose to be embroidered and that meant ripping it all apart to major dollars. The compromise was to add red, black, and gold appliques to it. They were in the stash and ready to go.

Each one of those pieces had to be sorted to mirrored pairs, pinned on and hand sewn down without coming through the lining. It was a huge task. What was left over was carefully put onto the pants to look balanced with the jacket and then hand sewn on.

The fashion show. All three dresses were made in BC.

The last project is a leather jacket. Stay tuned for Part Four.